The effects of climate change on ecosystems are often studied and discussed in terms of long-term changes in factors such as temperature averages. Michael Paul Nelson, humanities department chair, reframes this approach to climate change in light of extreme heat events in the paper “Extreme heat and the limits of tree and forest resilience,” recently published in Nature Climate Change.
“How we think about the drivers of vegetative impacts has a lot to do with how we think we can or should respond to those drivers and impacts,” said Nelson. “Our concept of tree and forest resilience, for example, is tied to a way of thinking that this research challenges.”